Brian Coppola :: WW2 Era

1939.03.05 “I’ve Been Hoarding this for Il Duce.” by Mischa Richter

Artist: Mischa Richter (All)

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1939.03.05 “I’ve Been Hoarding this for Il Duce.” by Mischa Richter Comic Art

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Artwork Details

Title:	1939.03.05 “I’ve Been Hoarding this for Il Duce.” by Mischa Richter
Artist:	Mischa Richter (All)
Media Type:	Pen and Ink
Art Type:	Illustration
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	533
Likes on CAF:	0 1
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	4/1/2020
Comic Art Archive:

Description

1939.03.05 “I’ve Been Hoarding this for Il Duce.”
by Mischa Richter (1910-2001)
8 x 12 in., ink and wash on paper

Mischa Richter (1910-2001) was a well-known New Yorker, King Features, and PM newspaper cartoonist who worked for the Communist Party’s literary journal “New Masses” in the late 1930 and early 1940s, becoming its art editor in the 1940s.

Life in Mussolini’s Italy was little different from other dictatorships which existed between 1918 and 1939. Mussolini started the fascist party in 1919 and came to power as Il Duce (“the leader”) in 1922. The US initially supported of Mussolini’s ability to have wrangled Italy out of a nearly tribal period, but the charm faded, and relationships went sour as Italy moved on Ethiopia in 1935.

To a significant degree, both Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia were used (if not expanded) on the lessons of Fascist Italy. Mussolini’s muscle, the Blackshirts, maintained an iron rule. One favored way of making people conform was to tie a ‘troublemaker’ to a tree, force a pint or two of castor oil down the victim’s throat and force them to eat a live toad/frog, etc.

This technique was said to have been originated by Gabriele D'Annunzio or Italo Balbo. Colonial officials used it in the British Raj (India) to deal with recalcitrant servants. Belgian military officials prescribed heavy doses of castor oil in Belgian Congo as a punishment for being too sick to work. The Blackshirts elevated it to a new level, and many editorial commentary and cartoons made note of these practices.

Victims of this treatment did sometimes die, as the dehydrating effects of the oil-induced diarrhea often complicated the recovery from the nightstick beating they also received along with the castor oil; however, even those victims who survived had to bear the humiliation of the laxative effects resulting from excessive consumption of the oil. Inspired by the Italian Fascists, the Nazis used the torture method against German Jews shortly after the appointment of Hitler as the German Chancellor in 1933.

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	Brian Coppola Premium Gallery Owner
Joined:	March 2009
Last Login:	September 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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